246 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



nately had placed elsewhere. The skin was well 

 prepared on my return to America, and now lies 

 before the fireplace as a pleasant reminder of an 

 interesting hunt, the head being mounted on the 

 rug with an expression of such ferocity as to seem 

 scarcely true to life. 



I had planned to leave Hongkong almost imme- 

 diately, but the hospitality of some old friends in 

 the Royal Artillery Mess at Kowloon, combined 

 with many picnics, bathing-parties, tennis after- 

 noons, and dinners, so far upset my plans that it 

 was not until the 2ist of October that I finally de- 

 parted. Taking leave of old Thomas, whom after 

 his many months of faithful service I was sending 

 back to Ceylon, I sailed on the Empress of China ; 

 and moving out of Hongkong's graceful harbor by 

 the Lyeemoon Pass, where C., of the India, was on 

 the bluff before his mess, waving flags and setting 

 off fire-crackers as a parting salute, we turned out 

 into the China Sea toward Shanghai, Nagasaki, 

 Kobe, and Yokohama. These splendid "Empress" 

 ships, with their graceful curving lines, cutter-bows, 

 pure white hulls, pink water-lines, and yellow fun- 

 nels, are among the finest in the East, and before 

 the end of my travels I was to know them well. 



Up to Shanghai the sea was very rough and the 

 air chilly. There would be no more soft sunny skies, 



